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How Traffic Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: With me is Charles Precious Bryant. How you doing, Precious.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: This is the podcast based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Yeah,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that is absolutely right, word for word. Right, Jerry just
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: got back because you did a spoiler. Yeah, for Precious,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I've known for spoilers, aren't it? At least two? It
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: was home? No, there was a there was um six
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: ft under. There was another one I spoiled too, wasn't there? Yeah?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: There was one you spoiled that was a really old
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: movie and I was like, come on, that movie is
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: like fifteen years old. There's a statue of momentation? Was
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it Buck Ruband's eye? Yeah? I think that was it? Yeah,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: me too, Chuck. Yes, have you ever been in traffic?
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: That's the best. I God, how do you set this up? Chuck?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Do you like Steve Winwood? Yeah? You know I was
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: gonna make a traffic a band comment. Have you ever
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: seen the low spark of high heeled boys? Yeah? Yeah,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: that's it. I'm seriously I'm like trying to you know,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: he was like fifteen when he first joined traffic because
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: he's a Lithario. Yeah, and by that I mean in Prodigy. Yeah. Yeah, traffic.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I've been in traffic, buddy, you Yes, I have actually
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: been in traffic. Um happens a lot because I don't
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: ride Marta. You ride are fine, fine, crippled public transit
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: system here in Atlanta. I'm never in traffic anymore. It's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it's really been a huge difference in my life. Yeah. Well,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I don't ride Marta because, um, I I usually I
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: tend to avoid the smell of urine and um, reading
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: while moving makes me sick. So I'm you know, plus,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I value I used to value being able to smoke. Yeah, dude,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I was just about to say that's why I used
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: to drive. Yeah, and now I'm just like, I just
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: do it out to have it. But I get caught
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: in traffic a lot, and it stinks. I don't see
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you on a public transport. You're not not You're not
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: that kind of social No. That's the other thing too,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, hey, we work together, let's talk the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: whole time. No, I don't. I wear my sunglasses. It
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: can be dark and raining, and I've told everyone here
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: that if I have my shades on. That means the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: office is closed. Nice, the story is shut down. That's
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: very nice stories. It looks super cool. Alright, So I'm
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a jerk that doesn't talk to coworkers. Now, moving on, buddy,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: It's okay, Chuck. Do you remember when we recorded quicksand yes,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: do you remember how we said that there's like a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: finite amount of stuff out there about quick thing, because
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: there's a finite amount to know. There's a finite amount
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to know about traffic. But there's tons of information out there. Yeah,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: lots of little side things to know for sure. Yeah,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Because ultimately, traffic happens in two ways. One is there
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: is simply congestion. There's just too many cars on the
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: road to carry to carry the flow of traffic quickly right.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: The other way is there is some unpredictable event that
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: somebody's pulled over, somebody's broken down, there's a wreck, maybe
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: an event that falls under congestion. Police have pulled over
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a traffic a speeder. People always slow down for that,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and that's it. That's it. Those are pretty much the
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: two broad categories that traffic can be created, right, um,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And what happens in each of those events is somebody
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: up front puts on their brakes and that that one
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: press of the brakes travels backward all the way through. Right,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: when you have a bunch of different cars and different
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: lengthes doing that at the same time, you have traffic
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: You know what, that's called traffic wave. Yes, that's true.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: It's a domino effect. It's very easy, it is. And
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I came up with my own idea of describing this.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: You ready, Okay, So what I came up with is
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: called the traffic bubble, okay, by Josh Clark. So the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: traffic bubble happens when somebody is driving along and presses
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: their brakes for whatever reason. And just imagine that when
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: they press that break, the big bubble grows over the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: car and it starts very slowly traveling backwards. And each
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: car behind that car that's that created the traffic bubble
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: isn't allowed to accelerate again until the traffic bubble is
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: passed through them, right. But then the further back the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: traffic bubble goes, the more it dissipates, until eventually the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: people far enough back don't have to go through the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: traffic bubble and they're not affected by it. And does
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the bubble pass through the front cars to where they
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: can then again accelerate. Is that how you see it
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: as a moving bubble? Yeah? Over the bubble travels backwards
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: over the traffic, and then once it passes over you,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you're allowed to accelerate again. I believe you're just going
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: to turn my friends traffic bubble like that or science
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: or no breaking bubble. That's what I called it. Okay,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: breaking bubble. Yeah, like a piping effect. I hate that
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: guy and he hates you. I don't care so traffic Josh,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: you want wink, might as well thrown a few stats here. Yeah,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: this one's that heavy. It is this this article by
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: our colleague Jonathan Strickland at tech Stuff. Yeah, the Baldest
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: podcast on staff. Here, Uh, what's a good stat here?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: The estimated traffic costs if you want to talk about
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: cost of traffic, and about five years ago they estimated
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: about seventy eight billion dollars and that's only fuel and
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: waste of time. They don't take into account like pollution,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: environmental damage, health costs due to pollution. I mean it
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: would really add up if you got to, you know,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: include those things. Yeah, and um with extra gas that
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: was bought in two thousand seven, right, isn't that the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: year that studies connected recovered. Um, we in the US
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: bought two point nine billion bill in extra gallons of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: oil because of traffic, and the annual cost for each
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: individual motorists in America was like seven bucks just sitting there,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: just from traffic, not from you know, the gas that
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: you need to actually get from point A to point B,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: but the extra gas used from idoling. Yeah crazy, yeah,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And uh, I believe l A tops it out obviously
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: at about two weeks a year you potentially spend sitting
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: in your car and traffic. Yeah, l A has Um.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: There's this group called the Texas Transportation Institute, and I
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: think they're out of A and M. Maybe they're awesome.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: They they they are like the leaders and studying and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: understanding and trying to mitigate traffic, right um. And they
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: came up with this thing called the travel time index.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Right Yeah. So basically you take the amount of time
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: it takes and it's specific to each city, and it's
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: for each city. It's not compared from city to city.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: It's compared to a certain time in one city to
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: another time in the same city. So in an off
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: peak time, say you can travel the speed limit, it
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: takes you one hour to get from point A to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: point B. In Los Angeles, it would take one point
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: nine two hours. Doubles your time basically during yeah, during
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: rush hour, So it takes twice as long to get
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: from point A to point B during rush hours compared
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: to off peak. That's the travel time index. Yeah, and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you know you have to do this anywhere you live
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: where there's heavy traffic. But when I lived in l A.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I used to have to always think, all right, well,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: this would take me forty five minutes normally. So and
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: when you work in the movie business, you you can't
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: be late. That's just not one of the things you do.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: You've got to be there on time or early. So
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, it's supposed to take me forty five minutes,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna give myself like two hours. I gave myself
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: more than double to get anywhere I needed to go.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: That's that's very smart. It's awful, is what it is. Yeah.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: L A's kind of bad, but chuck, we have it
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: pretty bad too. Yeah, Land is really bad. Among like
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: probably I think the top three or four. I heard
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a year or so ago that Atlanta had toppled l A.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: But I never saw any citation. Well all those It
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: depends on how they are rating it. Some they rate
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the differently, like the amount of time you spend in
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: your car commuting or the amount of time you sit idoling,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So it kind of depends. But Atlanta's way up there. Boston, Seattle,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: San Francisco. Actually I think Boston's absent from that. Oh really,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I think that they have made some moves that have
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: kind of mitigated traffic and gotten them off some of
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: the I know, the Big Dig was messing everything up.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: The Big Dig was just killing people. Yeah, and d
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: C is awful. Have you ever driven around there? Uh No,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I haven't. You was talking about how especially during the summer,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: during the travel or the tourist season, it's just mind numbing,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: is yeah. I mean way out into the suburbs in
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Virginia and Maryland sitting there. You know what they did
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: in l A that I saw one time that had
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: never seen was I was going down the highway one
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: day and I noticed everyone was slowing down. And I
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: looked up ahead on the express Ay and there were
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: to California Highway patrol cars doing huge slow ses back
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and forth on the six lanes of expressway, not letting,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: like keeping everyone back like a nask, like a like
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: a paste. Yeah, like a pace car. But you know
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: they weren't driving straight. They were driving these big s.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Is like, don't go by me. I've never seen that
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: before in my life. What would have made it even
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: funnier is if they've been driving those s with their
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: hands out their window and their guns just shooting into
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the area while they were doing it. That would really say,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: don't drive past me. Yeah, that would have been great.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And apparently that was they do that. It's a I
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: don't know what they call it, but that's too slow
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: everyone down. It's called being a yes. And on that note,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: my friend Derek has a joke about Atlanta traffic, and
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: he's right, because Atlanta before their traffic, everyone's driving really
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: really what fast. Yeah, that's one of the great characteristics
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: about Atlanta. As far as I'm concerned, you go as
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: fast as you can. I mean, the the average um
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: flow of traffic I would say, is about seventy miles
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: an hour around here. And that's with like a lot
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: of people all around you. Yeah, everybody's bumper, a bumper
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: going at least seventy, and the cops don't pull you
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: over unless you're going over seventy and even then, like
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: it's usually like you're going eighty or ninety when you
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: get pulled over because everybody else is going seventy. Right,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: And that's my buddy Derek's joke is in Atlanta, and
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: it's really true. It's not a joke. Everyone drives as
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: fast as they can every day until someone and then
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: someone wrecks, right, and then traffic backs up every single day.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: That's Atlanta traffic. Are we done? So let's just sit
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: here and do traffic stories, just talk about what what
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: angers us? So check there's a lot of smart people
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: who study traffic because, like you said, there's um, what
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: was it, how much money in two seventy eight billion
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: just from fuel and wasted time? Yeah, because think about it,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: a person's time is money, right, and if you're sitting
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: in traffic and sure one of those jerks like me
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: who has an iPhone that emails while he's driving, then
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: you're wasting money, right. Um. And actually there was this
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: there's a group called the Commute Solutions that are out
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: of Santa Cruz and they calculated the actual cost per
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: mile of driving, not just traffic, but driving to each
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: person is one point nineteen one dollar nineteen cents per mile. Yea,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: and that includes everything. I don't know how they came
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: up with that number, but check it out. Well, if
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: we're talking about highways and stats, we might as well
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: talk about the same. Texas group did a study and
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: um they found that traffic over the past years has
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: increased a and by they predict it will go up
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: another And here's what's remarkable. One only one of all
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: our roads are highways, yet they shoulder half the traffic,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: half the car travel. Yeah. Crazy, It is crazy. And
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: you don't usually think about when you think about traffic.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I usually think about the highway myself, although I rarely
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: get on the highway anymore. It's all surface streets that
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I take to and from work. Yeah, what do you go?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Druid Hills Piedmont and I go basically up Piedmont r um.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But it's it's traffic every day. But I don't think
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: of it as traffic. When I think of traffic, I
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: think of seventy five at rush hour and just like
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: UH exit ramps backed up the the thing is is
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: our surface streets are also intended to handle overflow of
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: highway traffic. Right, not just people who are backed up
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: from the exit ramp back onto the street, but I
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: mean people who are making a conscious decision like me
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to find a different way that doesn't have anything to
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: do with the highway. Right. And they found that if
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you want to widen a highway, I think we talked
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: about this in like the urban planning one, um that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: when you when you widen the highway, Um, there's something
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: called latent demand. It's a theory that if you want
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: in the highway, people like me are going to be like,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: oh well, now there's a leven lanes instead of five,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: so I'll just hop on the highway. And so the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: demand increases in step with the widening of the lanes.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So it actually doesn't mitigate anything by adding more lanes
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to a highway, right. I think they said the only
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: way that will work is if they outpaced demand with lanes,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and that just doesn't happen. There's too many cars. But
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that kind of makes sense to throw that money then
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: instead into upfront costs for a light rail system. Yeah,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: you know, you hippie, I actually I'm still holding up
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: for personal rapid transit. That was a palette in me podcast,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: but it was interesting. It's a good one. Uh, ramp metering,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: if if you're talking about solutions, that's another one. And
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: they had these in l A. And they have them
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: here in Atlanta now. It's where when you go to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: get on the highway. Now they have stop lights that
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: just allow like one car through every few seconds. So
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: you know, when you get on at Freedom Parkway, I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: used to fly around that and jump into traffic and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: squeeze in however I could, and um, that's you know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I was one of those jerks causing traffic. Well, I
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: think anybody entering is that, because again with traffic, especially
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: with just straight up congestion, there's just too many cars
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: in one place, especially when you have a line of
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: traffic and then more people directly adding to that lane. Yeah. Right,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: But ramp metering really really works. They did a study
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota. They have four d and thirty rant meters
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and in two thousand they shut them all down for
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: seven weeks and during that time traffic accidents increased. And
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: then afterward they re reinstituted it and they saw the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: capacity increased by fourteen, and they walked away from that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: project going like with their hands in their pockets. Yeah,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: like we should probably not tell anybody about that. Yeah.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I was trying to do a Minnesota accent, but that
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: was pretty good. I couldn't do it. I said it
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: was Oh, I know, it wasn't bad though, that's how
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: they say it. H O V lanes is another thing
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: that they've done pretty much countrywide, carpool lanes as help.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I always forget when I have another person in the car, though,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I'll get like halfway where I'm going and say,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: oh man, let's get in the carpoal lane. Yeah. I
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: have to say though. The h O V lane, to me,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: it's it's an extension of the fast lane. So you
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: get the fast ling and then you have the h
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: O V lane, And I hate it when it's the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: fast lane is just the fast ling. The HOV lan
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: is like, I drive as slow as I want, but
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I have, you know, four people in my car, agreed,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it makes it difficult. It's it's kind of like the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: h O V lane to me is you have two
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: or more people and you're willing to drive ten miles
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: faster than anybody else on the highway agreed. And since
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: we talked about pet peeves in our last podcast. My
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: one of my largest pet peeves is when I'm sitting
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: in traffic and I'll see people speeding by me in
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the H O V lane by themselves. Nothing bothers me
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: more than people that think the rules don't apply to them.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I hate that time. I hate those people or people
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: who um use the shoulder and just drive along in
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: traffic as far as they can to get like fifty
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: cars ahead. Yeah. I almost got plowed over in l
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: A one time. I was getting out to get in
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the regular exit lane and almost got creamed by a
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: truck that was on the shoulder. And I screamed at
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: him that he almost killed me, and he says, what
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: are you a cop? That's l A for you? It
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: was like, he literally almost killed me. What are you
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: a cop? If you were a cop, you'd be making
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: lazy s's in front of trying firing my gun into
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the air. Exactly what else, Josh, Uh, there's lanes. We
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: already talked about that. Whether there's that one, then there's
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: um probably the most uh contentious idea congestion pricing, which
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: is basically taxing people to drive. And there's a guy
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: named Alistair Darling. I don't know if he's still the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Transportation secretary baby something. You have a rock star in
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the transportation world, because he was a huge proponent of this,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and he said in England. In England, yeah, he was
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the British Transportation in secretary. He basically said, you know,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: cars exact a toll on the environment and on the road, um,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: just by driving on him, So we should charge people
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: to drive on the roads. What he failed to mention
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: is that we already do. There are things called taxes
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: and those are meant to pay for the roads. Right,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: he's forgetting about, you know, all the other misused money. Um.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: But they did actually have one in Great Britain. Do
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: they still chuck, No, I don't think they ever instituted.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: They had a pilot program from two thousand three to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: seven and it worked like a champ for him in
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: London at least. Yeah, there was a thirty percent dropping congestion,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: decrease in in fossil fuel consumption, decrease in CEO two emissions,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: So like in London, Singapore, Stockholm, San Francisco, San Francisco,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: did they institute one No, San Francisco is studying a
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: New York Bloomberg has proposed it and they've studied it.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And I just pulled this from this week. Actually, Lord
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Adonis is actually he's the Transport Secretary. Unless it's a
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: new guy. What was your guy? His name is Lord Adonis.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary came up with a new
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: hotel student. Yeah, that's where Joshuly staying in New York
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: under Lord uh he It says it's ruled out the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: introduction of a national road pricing for the next parliament.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: But they uncovered that civil servants are still involved with
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the project and spending money on research even though they
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: supposedly took it off the table. It was kind of
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a secret that they were still like tinkering with ou.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I thought you were like saying this, these people were
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: paying for this research on their own paychecks. No, but
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: they've sunk seven point two million pounds that I guess
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the public didn't know. They thought it was off the table.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: So they're kind of under some hot water, in some
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: hot water. They're they're in some deep quicksand yeah, they
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: said Golden Brown and Alista Dawling had been caught red
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: handed planning a spy in the sky sis him nice. Yeah, yeah,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: because I guess we should probably explain congestion pricing. Basically
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: every car on the road. I guess when you would
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: go get your vehicle tag or something, you also get
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: a radio frequency identifier, right, and as you're driving, some
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: satellite is tracking you, or you pass through some sector
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: or something like that, and all of a sudden you're
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: being you're in a toll area and much like say, uh,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: one of those toll passes UM, you are sent a
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: bill or there's like you have to set up like
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a credit card or a bank account, attach that to
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: your to your tag, and it just draws money from
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: it based on however much you drive in there. In Singapore,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: when they first instituted, there's an actually in UM they
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: had a flat rate for downtown, which is the most
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: congested during peak hours. You had to pay three bucks
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: to just drive around downtown. You could drive around all wanted. Uh.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And as they as as they've gotten better at it,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: they're they're getting a little fancy schmancy with it, you know, like, um, well,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: if you want to drive here, it's a dollar seventy
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: d for twenty minutes, but you can back, you know,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: two blocks over and it's just fifty cents and so on. Well,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that's one of the rubs that um, one of the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: big things is is in England at least in other
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: places too. I think they've suggested paying more for peak
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: hour so be flexible in your work schedule. But then
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of course people that are a friend of the poor
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: say that's progressive taxation because white collar dudes can be
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: all flexible and work from home, but the poor have
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: to get up and go to work during peak hours.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: So you're they're basically paying for the road that the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: rich man drives on. Exactly, That's exactly right, and that's
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the big problem. I mean, aside from having to pay
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to drive with with a with a congestion tax. Yeah, um,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: what else can you do? Chuck? And also remember we
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: were talking it's this isn't just highways surface streets to everybody,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: don't get all anxious, we're talking about surface streets as well. Yes, uh,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: surface streets you get a lot of suburban sprawl, you know,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: like here in Atlanta, you've got like out in Roswell
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago, it was it was kind of desolate
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: cow patties and now it's all uh, you know, young
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: families moving out there who don't want to be around
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: urban types. Yeah, and you have a lot of a
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: lot more cars. Um you have again that that one
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of two ways that you can cause traffic. Just put
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: more cars on a road than it than it's designed
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: to hand. And then out in the boonies like that.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: They weren't built for you know, they were built for farmland.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden they got these suburban people moving
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: out there, and so traffic lights is something they can do. Yeah,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: this one disturbed me. Um that even the so you
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: have a traffic light that is on a timer, right, yeah,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: which is so much, especially when they're poorly timed. Decator
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: is awful. Yes, yeah, decator is awful. There's another one
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: for the Piedmont Park parking deck and it just does
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: whatever it wants, no matter what time and day, and
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: if there's a car, they're not and people are just
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: stopped in either direction, right, And um, that's a time
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: light and time lights are awful. They're awful. Right. Then
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: you have um sensored lights, which are awesome, right because
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you just come up in the way to your car
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: triggers it, yeah, those are good. Yeah. Or you have
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a mixed system that uses time timing and sensors and
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: it changes depending on the kind of day where it is.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: It's like you can set up a citywide comprehensive traffic
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: light plan. Some cities have this. Even the best mixed
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: citywide comprehensive traffic light plan reduces congestion by one percent.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Really yeah, yeah, Atlanta is bad about that, at least
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: in my area. There's and Jerry can confirm this, she
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: kind of lives over near me. But there's all these
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: scenarios where you'll you'll stop at a light that's timed
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: to not Part of the smart light system is that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: they're all time to work together. So like if you
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: sit here at this corner and you take a ride
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: on red, there's not another red light waiting on you,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and then that turns green, and then thirty more feet
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: there's another red light. They should be timed out to
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: where they were green. In l A. It's like, I mean,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: that's the one thing I will say. There's a lot
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of traffic. It's just because the people they do the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: best they can. You look down, they have these long, long, long,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: straight streets in Hollywood, and late at night you'll be sitting,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: like on Hollywood Boulevard at a red light and you'll
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: see wink wink, You'll see like eight lights turn green,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: all that new Balance commercial. Yeah, with that woman running
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and she pushes herself to make all the lights doomed.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: A failure, but still it was a nice effort. I
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: would I would go longer in l A just to
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: get off the highway, even if it took me longer,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: just to feel like I was moving. And chuck, I'm
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: about to spoil it for all of our British, UK, English, Welsh, Irish,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Scottish friends who are typing an angry corrective email about
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: al Stir Darling. He is not a Transportation secretary. He
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: was the British Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Lord Adonis is the Transport secretary. That and me name
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: We were talking about people um studying this kind of thing.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: There's all sorts of really cool quantifications for traffic. My
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: favorite is the passenger car equivalent. Okay, so you have
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a passenger car is say a sitting at an averagity
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and Toyota camera, all right? Or to be fair, Honda accord. Right, Um,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that is like just an average car that you can
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: fit four people into and it drives down the road
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: and it's pretty responsive. And um an suv or a
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: bus or a van is not as responsive because they're
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: larger and because they take up more space, they're slower
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: to accelerate, and so they they exact a heavier burden
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: on a highway during congest right, So what they've come
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: up with our passenger car equivalent. So an suv is
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: one point four pc, right, and then a a city
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: bus is like four point four pc. It's like four cars, right, Yeah,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: it has the same as far as like accelerating after
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: breaking and just the space that's taking up. That's the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: equivalent of a passenger car. So one good solution to
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: traffic is everybody driving smaller car, no kidding, and virtual slots, right, yeah,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: what's the deal there. Each car has a certain amount
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: of space it takes up, and don't try and fit
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: into a slot that's a bit smaller than your car.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Is that how you know? That's pretty much firstual slots
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: like tetris. Yeah, if you just amagement that there is
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: a basically a rectangle around your car like bubble a bubble,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: but not a break bubble. Okay, you want to avoid
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the brake bubble um, but this is more of a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: rectangle and it kind of hugs the sides your cars,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: but it's longer on the front and back. And if
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: every everybody's car stays in these slots that are on
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the highway, you just kind of pull into them as
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you're driving, and the slots are going like all the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: same rate, then as long as there's not too many
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: cars on the road, were more more cars than there
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: are slots, there should be no traffic. Yeah, but that
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: never happens because all this is pie in the sky still.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, because when invariably you're sitting in the lane
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: and you're like that lanes moving now, and then you
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: get over in that lane you're like, well, now that
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: lanes moving, and you keep going back and forth where
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: if you stayed where you are, if everyone stayed where
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: they were, you would all get there quicker. Or if
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: everybody just stayed at home. Yeah, yes, good point, but
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: your jobs stay at home. Right, So that's uh, that's
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: our two cents, and uh, if you want to learn
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: more about traffic, we we've been killing the articles with
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: cool flash animations, haven't we one? It has a flash
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: animation about a traffic wave. Cool, no break bubble. I'm
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: going to see about having somebody add one of those
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the term my friend. You can type in traffic I
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: think it'll bring up a bunch of stuff in the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: handy search part how stuff works dot Com, which means
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: it's time for listener questions. It's time for Facebook questions. Yes,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: as we said in that other podcast on quicksand we took,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: we post on Facebook. Hey, give us some questions. We'll
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: answer like ten of them really quickly. We got in
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: an hour. This comes from Chelsea. What's the most unusual
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: thing you've ever eaten? Uh? Tripe for me, which is intestines.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, what's yours? Um. I've had fried chicken hearts,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I've had beef tongue, tongue. My favorite is um bone
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: marrow really highly highly recommend anywhere you can find bone
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: marrow it, just eat it. The only place down here
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: is rathbutons and it's okay, yeah you good wrath buns.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: You gotta get one of those steaks. No, not not rathbunds, steaks,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: regular wrath buns. Yeah. Strangely, he doesn't have bone marrow there,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: but yes, uh, those weird stuff all right, I got
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you questions right there. You want to read one? Yeah,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I guess this one's from Jacob. If a tree falls
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in the forest and no one is around to here,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and Jacob hyphenates no one, which frankly I find like flourish. Nice. Yes,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: except for a tape recorder which absorbs the radiant vibrations
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and can later play them back as audible waves. Did
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the tree really make a sound? The answer is yes, yes. Uh.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Kristen says, where christ and Candice now? And who does
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the intro for the podcast? Chris Palette is um co
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: host of Tech Stuff Now and has been for quite
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: a while. He's made it hometown boy made Good. Candice
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Gibson Keener has gotten married and she stepped out of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the limelight to concentrate on just being an editor. But
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: she's still here. Sits right next to Josh and Roxanne
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: does the intros for the podcast. She's our head of video.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: There you go, that is not Jerry. A lot of
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: people think it's Jerry. There was some comprehensive answers right there.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Rachel says she currently lives in Athens g a dog.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear more about your experience living here,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: where you hung out your favorite bands to see whatever
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: fond or not so fond memories you might have of Athens.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: She says. We have quite a following there. Did you
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: know that I didn't either. My bar was Roadhouse. I
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: hung out of Roadhouse all the time. I was a
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Georgia bar guy, did you Yes? And we should point
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: out that the Georgia Bar, the Globe, and the Roadhouse
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: made up the bar Muda Triangle and you could access
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: them all through the alley to get to the next
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: so most decided they could. Quite often you would hop
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: around into State at Roadhouse. I hope Roadhouse still there.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: It's gotten to be, Yeah, it is. And then of course, um,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I always liked Wilson Soul Food and Guthrie's, which in
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: my opinion is superior to Zaxpiece, even though it's the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, I was automatic for the people, were you? Yeah?
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I lived right around the corner from there, so remember
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: what was the name of that restaurant? I went to
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Weaverdece Automatic for the people. Yes, that was good too.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I liked Wilson's because the owner walked around and he's
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: like four ft tall and he shook hands with everybody. Right,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: nice guy? Um, and of course Harry Bassett's I never
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: went there. Oh my god, that was a frat bar.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: You went there, I could go. It wasn't just the bar,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: like the food was amazing. It was I put the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: food up against any in Atlanta. Ero wrap nna eat
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of e rose in college. Alright? Uh, Kristen, No, Randy,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: who's the cat who won't cop out when there's danger
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: all about? I think we both know shaft nice who's
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the cat that won't cop out? That's one of the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: lesser quoted lines from that song. Yeah, I've got one
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: from chavon. How do your significant others feel about your
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: legion of man crushes and equally strong lady crushes? Chuck,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I wasn't aware that anyone had to crush on us,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: were you? I didn't know that. I've seen them before.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: But Emily thinks it's funny. Sure, yeah, it is funny.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: She's now I'm not going it is. I mean, if
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: you if only people can see our stomachs so much
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: hair and Laura, how many emails do you it? Per podcast?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: We get about three hundred a week. Laura Alan, who
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: put the bomb in the bomb shabamp shabamp um. The
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: only reason I read that it's because he stressed his
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: mill house in his picture. Nice. And who is your
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: most surprising celebrity fan. We've only got a few that
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: we know of, and they're all surprised. One is more
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: surprising than last. I've got one. Um Oh, I can't
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: remember her name. There's a girl who stars in Secret
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Life of the American Teenager. She's a fan of the show.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: She tweeted that she was on set like in between
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: um shooting and listening to stuff you should know. Yeah.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: John Hodgman, I was pretty knocked out by that. That's
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. Bradley Cooper Yeah, Will Wheaton, Yeah, Renee's l Wager,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Aisha Tyler Yes. And the couple of The Daily Show guys,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: why at Senec Yeah. Joe Randazzo, the editor in chief
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of The Onion. If you are a celebrity that we
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: did not mention, we would love to know that you
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: listened to us, because we're just kind of thrilling. We're like,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: we're nobody, So when you hear that, I think it's cool. Yeah,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, I got one more pirates, Shelley says, pirates
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: are ninjas. Ninjas clearly definitely that's it. Okay, Chuck's given
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the He's out. Isn't it called Vegas? Yeah, it's like
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: when the dealer finishes, they're around or whatever. There's gotta
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: be a name for it. If you know the name
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: for that, we want to know. Send it in an
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
• 32:37
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• 32:39
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